Mike Pence says the Trump administration has departed from conservative principles

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday that President Donald Trump’s second administration has “departed” from traditional conservative principles.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Pence, who served as Trump’s vice president from 2017 to 2021, told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that the administration is no longer committed to “the conservative agenda that has defined the Republican Party since the days of Ronald Reagan, and before that an agenda of American leadership, limited government, free market economics, the right to life.”He added that “on a number of those issues, the president’s been good” in the past.“I don’t think there’s any question about the president’s popularity,” Pence continued, adding: “I give him all the credit in the world for the hold that he has on Republican voters.”The former vice president said he still believes GOP voters align with the party’s core conservative principles, telling “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that “if Republicans this fall and in 2028 hold up those time-honored conservative principles, those voters will rally to our cause.”Pence said he understands that GOP primary voters want to support Trump-aligned candidates in primaries, “but I believe that the overwhelming majority of people in the MAGA movement believe that America is the leader of the free world, believe in limited government, less taxes, less regulations, would reject ideas like nationalization of businesses and price controls and broad-based tariffs, and at the core of our movement is a commitment to the sanctity of life.”The former vice president criticized the Trump administration for not doing enough to restrict abortion pills, saying, “This administration, we see a desire to relegate the right to life to a state-only issue, to actually have a pro-abortion secretary of HHS who has done nothing to limit the availability o...